Shane Ross, president and founder of Rockafairy, left, Mason Weems and Bryan Oliver move instruments Wednesday to the The Drop in Medford.

Rockafairy founder Shane Ross nearly marked the one-year anniversary of the region’s first nonprofit musical lending library and collaborative “jam space” by closing its doors.

Ross had been struggling to pay rent in recent months for the 3,800-square-foot space at 31 W. Sixth St., formerly home to an American Cancer Society thrift store. Rockafairy began in a back room at Tom’s Guitars in Medford, with local people donating instruments so families could rent what they needed for just $10 per month. It quickly outgrew the space and made a home in downtown Medford last February.

Earlier this week, Ross and his crew begrudgingly began packing up the numerous woodwind instruments, guitars and amps. Still inspired by his original dream of a community music space, he set about negotiating “satellite locations” at the Medford Drop youth-support center and Ghostlight Playhouse where he could continue on a modified basis with day-to-day operations.

With most services offered by Rockafairy available for free or little cost, Ross said finding local bands to rent practice space to help fund other programs had gone slower than he’d hoped.

Heading to Rockafairy Wednesday to load up some amps and guitars to deliver to the Medford Drop, he got an 11th-hour reprieve. Wendy Ma, property manager for the building where Rockafairy has been housed since it opened, offered a deal: Don’t leave and rent could be reduced by nearly half.

“The building has been great. It’s really big. We just didn’t have the business model to support the expense of the lease,” Ross

said.

“We were literally moving stuff out of the building when she called to say they would meet us in the middle at a very doable amount.”

Ma said property owners were sad to hear Rockafairy might have to move.

“They do a great thing for the community. It’s been really good. I enjoy having them, and I wanted to try to help however I could,” said Ma.

“We especially like Shane. He’s a nice, young entrepreneur, and he’s done a great thing for the community, and so we need them to stay there.”

Ma said keeping vibrant activities in the downtown and reducing the number of vacant buildings in the area was important.

“Everybody needs this, especially after COVID. There are so many people in the community having so many problems. These kind of places play a pretty important role in helping our community.”

Ross said he is still looking for satellite locations for jam sessions, concerts and other Rockafairy programming.

Nearly losing their space served as a sort of wake-up call and re-inspired his dream for community music Ross said.

“We were trying to make some clever moves where we expand our surface area and offer more opportunities for the community while reducing our overhead,” he said.

“The big value in that building is that it’s a wonderful communal space and central spot for the library, which is great. The other thing it serves is as infrastructure for local artists to rehearse and practice. I’m excited to now start partnering with Ghostlight and the Drop, and possibly some other places. Now we can really start to expand artist infrastructure in the valley and really provide each level their own space to grow.”

Mason Weems, youth peer recovery specialist for the Medford Drop, said providing space for Rockafairy to offer opportunities and events was a boost for the community overall and especially to his Front Street center, which serves youths ages 14 to 25 with everything from peer support and meals to computer access and other resources.

“The best part about teaming with Rockafairy is we have this incredible stage because the space used to be a night club. This really is like the grassroots building blocks of healthy musical infrastructure,” Weems said.

“In a community this big, with so many crazy talented musicians, there’s no reason there shouldn’t be a show every single night. We’re excited to be part of it all.”

A mid-August Rockafest will repeat this year near the The Commons downtown, and a new event, a Rockafairy Street Fair, is set for April 21.

Ross said he breathed a sigh of relief that the sounds of Rockafairy have not been lost to the downtown this week.

“The lightning in the bottle was the noise it made and the fact that people would come in and form bands and make noise and you could hear it in all downtown Medford,” Ross said.

“It brought an energy and a drumbeat to the downtown music scene. Our old space feels like a closet right now, since we started to move out, but now we can re-envision the space just a little and keep the music going.”

For info on Rockafairy, rockafairy.org or facebook.com/RockafairyExpress